Chapter 116: New Tactics

Because Her Royal Highness the Princess of the Two Sicilies was coming to Paris for a tour, the French Guard, as the garrison of Paris, naturally had to take on the responsibility of escorting along the way.

And the commander of the French Guard, Bessonval, became the busiest person.

He had to make all officers and soldiers remember every step of welcoming, guarding along the way and escorting before the princess arrived.

There must be no mistakes in this matter. So he had to personally watch the troops and repeatedly rehearse the entire process of welcoming and escorting along the preset route when the princess came, so that he could be assured.

He felt a headache when he thought that the Grand Duchess of Tuscany would come later.

The French Guard lined up in three columns and walked quickly along the path outside Paris. Just as they were about to arrive at the scheduled welcoming location, a loud bang suddenly came from the southwest, and the advancing queue stopped like a frightened rabbit.

Bessonval frowned. He could hear that it was the sound of cannons.

How could there be cannons in this ghost place?

As if responding to his doubts, there was another roar in the distance.

The soldiers of the French Guard had taken off their guns and looked around to guard against possible attackers.

Bessonval gestured to the officer beside him. The latter immediately sent two hussars to scout in the direction of the cannon fire.

More than ten minutes later, the cavalry returned, reined in their horses and shouted:

"Report, the Paris Police Academy is conducting artillery training!"

"Paris Police Academy? Artillery training!" Bessonval couldn't connect the two for a long time, and asked in confusion, "Isn't the Paris Police Academy in the Saint-Antoine district?"

"General, they said this is their training ground."

Bessonval couldn't help but narrow his eyes. As the commander of the Paris garrison, he didn't even know that there was a training ground with cannons in the southern suburbs of Paris!

In fact, this can't be blamed on him. With the information level of this era, if people are not deliberately sent to scout, sometimes two armies pass by each other ten kilometers apart without noticing each other.

There was no chance of enemy troops appearing around Paris, so the French Guards would not be idle and just scout around.

So the training base of the police academy had been in use for a month and a half, but they had not discovered it until they happened to pass by here to familiarize themselves with the route to welcome the princess.

Bessonval lowered his head and thought for a while, then ordered the officer beside him: "Order, rest here. Let's go over and take a look."

...

In the training base of the Paris Police Academy.

Berthier looked at the nearly 200 police officers in shock as they followed the drumbeats and skillfully lined up in infantry lines, and another messenger shouted: "Keep in line!" and rode past the team.

On the left side of the team, there were two four-pound cannons.

Opposite them, there were more than a hundred police officers with white cloth tied on their arms.

The "white team" seemed to lack training, with only two-thirds of them forming two thin lines, while the remaining one-third were sparsely scattered in front of the lines, constantly approaching the opposite line of defense.

Berthier, acting on the instinct of a soldier, shook his head and said to Dubois: "If the white team doesn't get in order, they will probably be defeated."

The latter smiled and shook his head: "Alexander, there is nothing wrong with their formation."

"Formula?" Berthier frowned. Where is the formation of the "white team"? It is clear that the officers failed to restrain their soldiers...

Suddenly, he felt something was wrong.

Although the "white team" looked messy, the scattered police officers in front of the line always kept the same pace, as if forming a barrier in front of the infantry line.

Then, the cannon of the "blue side" roared. Of course, this was just an exercise, and no projectiles were loaded.

The instructors who were responsible for assessing casualties nearby made a quick judgment, and one of them said two numbers to the assistant. The latter immediately sent a flag signal to the training, indicating that the shells passed through the scattered formation of the "white side", causing only 2 deaths and 4 injuries.

"They are sending themselves to die. I think they need more training." Berthier couldn't help shaking his head.

"Please be patient and watch." Dubois reminded calmly.

After the cannon of the "Blue Team" sounded twice, the "White Team" changed.

The drumbeats suddenly accelerated, and the messy police officers in front of the team burst into roars:

"Charge!"

"Break through the enemy line!"

"Don't be afraid, go!"

The messy team began to run, and the "Blue Team" immediately greeted them with a volley of flintlocks.

However, because the "White Team" was too scattered, the shooting only caused limited damage to them. More than three-quarters of the "White Team" police rushed to a place only 30 meters away from the "Blue Team" infantry line.

"Stop moving forward!" As the officers of the "White Team" gave orders, dozens of police officers stopped at the same time and raised their flintlocks.

"Fire!"

A puff of gunpowder rose in the scattered queue. The close-range volley instantly caused the "Blue Team" to lose seven or eight people.

Just as the "White Team" began to reload ammunition on the spot, the "Blue Team" fired back again, and the "White Team" that had just rushed to the front was immediately sentenced to 3 deaths and 6 injuries.

Just as the "Blue Team" infantry line was entangled with these opponents who were not even standing in a neat line, the "White Team" infantry line behind them had quietly arrived less than 50 meters away from them.

Those scattered "White Team" police officers suddenly retreated and "integrated" into their own line at a very fast speed.

Then, the police officers on the "white team" raised their guns, while the "blue team" on the opposite side was in disarray due to the previous exchange of fire.

"Fire!"

The neatly-formed "white team" fired a volley, making the "blue team" team more and more chaotic.

Infantry lines shoot at each other, whoever has a neat line and a uniform shooting pace will have the upper hand.

The "blue team" then had more and more gaps in the team under the opponent's continuous shooting, and finally when the casualties reached one-third, the instructor in charge of the assessment judged it a failure.

Berthier turned his head and stared at Dubois, his face full of disbelief-why did the "white team" with a messy line win? Their number was even slightly less than the opposite side!

From the first day of military school, he was taught that "the infantry line must be kept neat, and if there is chaos, it is better to stop shooting and tidy up first."

He was sure that the exercise just now was very formal and there was no partiality, but why did the messy side win?

Dubois explained to him: "This is called the 'skirmisher attack tactic'. It was invented by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."

"Skirmisher? That's impossible..." Berthier had a question mark on his face. The Austrians often used skirmisher formations, but they did it for the convenience of mountain warfare. I have never heard that they could break through the neat infantry lines of the opponent.

Joseph, who was sitting in front watching the exercise, felt a little ashamed. He thought that this was a tactic created by Emperor Napoleon, and I just copied and pasted it.

However, he still turned his head and smiled like a little fox: "Major Berthier, if you want to know more about this tactic, you can come to the Paris Police Academy often. Oh, there are many other new tactics here, maybe you will be interested."

...

As soon as Bessonval saw the wall of the Paris Police Academy training base from a distance, he was stopped by several people in police uniforms: "Police Academy training, no approaching!"

An officer rushed forward and said proudly: "This is the commander of the French Guard, General Bessonval. Who is in charge here? Let him come over."